Benjamin Mays
American educator, activist, minister (1894-1984) · United States · On the map · Educators · Died at 89
Benjamin Elijah Mays was an American Baptist minister and civil rights leader who is credited with laying the intellectual foundations of the American civil rights movement.
Benjamin Mays is read about 50 times a day, in 5 languages.
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Mays traveled to Maine to study at Bates College when he was 23.
Mays studied at the University of Chicago after receiving his B.A. from Bates; he received a M.A. in 1925 and PhD. in 1935.
Mays worked at Howard University from 1934 to 1940.
Martin Luther King Jr. considered Mays his "spiritual father".
Mays, during his social tours, was honored at the South Carolina State House in 1978.Awards
About this person
Mays taught and mentored many influential activists, including Martin Luther King Jr, Julian Bond, Maynard Jackson, and Donn Clendenon, among others. His rhetoric and intellectual pursuits focused on Black self-determination. Mays' commitment to social justice through nonviolence and civil resistance were cultivated from his youth through the lessons imbibed from his parents and eldest sister. The peak of his public influence coincided with his nearly three-decade tenure as the sixth president of Morehouse College, a historically black institution of higher learning, in Atlanta, Georgia.
